


Truce

by emoviolent



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Band, Childhood Trauma, Cotard’s Delusion, Disabled Character, HIV/AIDS, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Nonbinary Character, Religious Themes, Self Harm, Suicide Attempts, Survivor Guilt, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:35:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22083208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emoviolent/pseuds/emoviolent
Summary: In which Josh is rotting as some sort of twisted divine intervention and Tyler loves them anyway.
Relationships: Josh Dun/Tyler Joseph
Comments: 9
Kudos: 10





	Truce

**Author's Note:**

> josh is depicted as being a non-binary person with a prosthetic leg and tyler is a trans man with HIV. this fanfic discusses graphic details of decay and features body horror. there is a small mention of sexual assault and implied sex work. 
> 
> see the end note for the short playlist that inspired me.

Cold in December, cold in the apartment, cold to the bones. Shivering beside each other beneath quilts and sheets, siphoning the warmth from one another’s body. Sinewy limbs as tangled as the matted, unwashed grease-drenched hair on our heads. Just two dirty boys living the American wet dream. 

Taking our medication in the morning together. You’re on more pills than me. You need them to function and are carefully monitored at the clinic downtown. You offer to take me to see the team of psychiatrists and therapists so I can get medicine that properly suits my needs (“they let you pay on a sliding scale with cash and it’s surprisingly cheap,” you say) but I can’t bear to live through it all again. My Prozac versus your Zoloft plus Seroquel plus Adderall plus ART. I can’t keep up. One foot in the grave. 

You take me with you. You might as well be dragging a corpse, using me as a puppet. I nod to conversations and fumble with my words. You laugh. You think I’m cute. You find comfort within my silence and empty gaze. You like the dead boys, you say. “They treat me right and don’t leave me.”

“I guess they like you too,” I reply. Your teeth are sharp and different shades of white when you smile, blinding and vicious. I smile back.

+

Lay by your side, shaking from tremors. “Joshie, are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” I’m lying. I’m  _ rotting.  _ The maggots are swarming, churning in my belly. “I’m fine.”

Everything will be better when I am six feet under where I belong. 

+

“Show me your scars.”

Sleeves rolled up, wrists thrust out and turned upward. I am vulnerable, exposed, ready to be killed. You touch me gently. Your touch burns, right to the bone. Red hot. 

Fingers running over the inside of my arm, following that thick line of raised skin. “You survived it?” 

I nod. “More or less.” Liar. I died and I am forced to inhibit the body that was supposed to be laid to rest.

“We match.” 

“Do we?”

“Yeah.” You lift the left sleeve of your mustard yellow jacket, revealing stitches embedded in angry red flesh. “I keep messing with them. They itch.”

“They’ll do that,” I reply flatly. You raise an eyebrow and I cough. “The skin… it’s healing and growing. It’ll feel weird since you cut so deep.” I look down, dig my toes into the discolored carpet. It crunches and scratches the sole of my right foot. You look down too and we stay like that for a few minutes, TV flickering blue-white-green over the living room. My flesh can be rather cruel. I want it gone. 

“I want a soda. Can you bring me one?”

“Of course.”

+

I love it when we kiss. It’s not pretty but neither are we. Crooked chipped teeth gnashing and bumping against each other, mildly chapped lips scratching along patches of stubble, the calloused palms of our hands running over flesh and pulling at hair. My heart gives a single thud in the chamber of my chest before dying again. You breathe life into me. 

One finger, two fingers, three fingers inside of me, thumb rubbing my clit. Animal noises in the back of my throat, hungry and untamed. The only thing grounding me is your hands, working steadfastly, one between my thighs, the other around my neck. My hips jerk with pleasure, face, neck and chest flushed and covered in sweat. I haven’t felt like this in ages. I need more.

“Fuck me.” 

You present your cock to me. A good seven inches in length and an inch and a half thick. Hard purple silicon protruding from the opening of your boxers. I touch it experimentally, working both hands over the shaft. “It’s big.” 

“We can try something else.”

“I like it.” It’ll be a tough fit because it’s been so long since I’ve been fucked. I’ll be tight and surprised even after you finger me. I’m lucky to still have the ability to get wet. 

You laugh and twist your fingers within me. I shake with the pleasure, making a soft groan. “Fuck, baby girl, that’s hot.” I could cry from this. 

Staring at the ceiling, eyes wide and unseeing as you thrust into me. The bed frame slaps the wall, the mattress springs cream and the noise all blends together. Animal sounds, hungry, vicious, deep and longing. Teeth bared, ready to bite and consume. Eat me eat me eat me. 

I cum easily with a shudder and a high pitched mewl. You crouch between my legs, clutching my hairy thighs with both hands and holding me open as you clean me. Swallowing and tasting dead flesh, loving it, worshiping it. You come back up and push your slick fingers between my lips, making me taste myself. I expect blood but instead am met with something salty and mildly bitter. Then you remove the digits and spit in my still open mouth. 

“Beautiful boy,” you murmur. “Come suck my cock, please.”

You make me suck on the toy. You can’t feel the sensation and at most can feel the prosthesis push against your crotch but I know how much you love to watch me. And you know how much I love to do this for you. 

For a few minutes, you allow me to swallow around the plastic and lick away the remnants of my orgasm, watching with heavy lidded eyes and pink cheeks as I swirl my tongue and bob my head. A hand cards through my hair and pulls, hard enough to make me whine around you but so gentle and loving, controlling. You guide me along your cock, make me into a toy for your own usage. I close my eyes and accept this, moaning softly and bringing a hand up to rub at the inside of your thigh. 

Then you pull me off, look me over with an expression that is equal parts adoration and lust. You hook two fingers on either side of my mouth and pull the skin into a taut grimace. Teeth bared, face flushed and damp, darkened eyes. I am the perfect picture of debauchery. I could eat you whole. Maybe I will. “Got such a pretty mouth,” you murmur. “Good with it too. Will you let me sit on your face?” 

Such a gentleman. Always asking permission and checking to make sure I like every bit of what we’re doing. A giver but not much of a receiver. You once spent hours exploring my body, caressing my skin and finding my erogenous zones. You brought me to orgasm five times, had me sobbing and heaving with it, but insisted that you wanted nothing in return. I thought you just didn’t like being touched but you were scared I would see the scars.

There are so many and the collection is still growing, albeit in slower numbers these days. I couldn’t be prouder. One of us has to live. I’ll take your life and your scars and your heartache. I’ll take as much of you as I can. I have to consume you to be close to you.

My head disappears between your opened thighs and my fingers brush over thick scabs and course curls. Sucking the life out of you. The dead feasts upon the living. Post necrophilic eroticism. Zombie’s delight.

+

When you don’t come home, I worry. I know I shouldn’t but I can’t help it. You told me about the beatings and the raping and I get so scared thinking that if it happens again, I can’t save you. I pray for you. Our alarm clock becomes my god. Stay alive for me. 

You always come home though. Sweaty face, clothes that need to be washed, tired and worn down yet still happy to see me. You give me that sharp toothy smile and saunter to me, kissing my cheek and murmuring that you’ve missed me.

We bathe together. You help me wash the parts I can’t reach and I cut your nails for you. I have grown to love how gentle you are with me. At first I thought you were afraid of me. With tears in your eyes you hesitantly touched the burns on my back and shoulder, choked back a sob as you touched what remains of my left leg. Did you see the rotting flesh and blood too? The maggots swarming inside of my belly and chest? I couldn’t tell. 

You were scared to touch me because you feared you would upset me. I understand now and I no longer resent you for it. I welcome soft kisses to the nape of my neck and calloused fingertips caressing the fading scars on my chest. You’re good to me. You give me life. 

  
  
  


“I thought suicide was my only option.” 

If I didn’t know you any better, I wouldn’t have ever realized how ill you were. Looks can be deceiving. You clean up well, hiding fresh cuts and bruises under jackets and jeans, although you never really figured out how to properly shave. There’s always a few patches of stubble left on your jaw and upper lip, and knicks on days where it hurts to move your hands and wrists. 

“What made you change your mind?” I’d like to know. Did you find religion? Have a near death experience? Give up? What happened? I’d take death any day. Put me out of my misery. Please let me die. 

“A beautiful boy with blue hair asked to borrow my shampoo.” Your hands are warm on my face, caressing and patting. “He was so shy, looked like he thought the world was going to swallow him whole.”

I blush. You’re talking about me. “I… didn’t remember how to use my body and thought you could tell I was…”

“Yeah, I know.” You get me. You love me. Every part of me even the grisly burnt parts and the hacked off limb, my reluctance, my delusions, my art. “I want to die before I grow old, but you often make me reconsider.” 

Someone sobs. I look at you with wide eyes before I realize that the sound came from my own body. My cheeks are wet and my eyes burn. I sniffle. “Maybe we can go out together then,” I say. My voice and body shakes with the effort of speaking.

“Maybe. We’ll have to wait and see.”

I can’t tell if I want to go down with you or on you but what I feel is intense. It burns sweetly. I settle for the latter and put death on the back burner. 

Staring at the ceiling again. Slivers of moonlight slither through the fabric of our curtains. Your soft snores are my lullaby, a reprise from the madness of my thoughts, softening the blow, redirecting them. Where would I be without you? Life was forced unto me, plucked me from the darkness and sunk its teeth into my flesh. No matter what I try I am stuck here. Maybe there’s a reason. I haven’t figured it out yet. I don’t know if I care to. 

  
  
  


I took you up on the offer to visit the clinic. They evaluated me, ran my vitals, did a background check, the works. The doctors were kind and didn’t stare at my prosthetic or notice my mild limp or the burns and scars on my arms and back, didn’t care about the hair peeking from the neckline of my dress. A nurse said she liked it. The doctor gave me 50mg of Zoloft and 400mg of Seroquel, refilled my testosterone, told me my Prozac wasn’t doing anything for me and might as well have been a placebo. They asked if I wanted to start therapy and when I said I was scared, they gave me a pamphlet for a small support group that met on Tuesdays. 

I stare at the pill bottles. The labels read JOSHUA WILLIAM DUN. Do not mix with alcohol or operate heavy machinery. Clinic phone number and address. I roll a bottle in my hands, feel the weight of the hard plastic. That makes everything real. It just clicks. I need to do this. I need to get help. 

I take a pill from each bottle and wash it down with a mouthful of water from the sink. You watch from the doorway, feigning disinterest and occasionally looking at your phone. The worms in my belly squelch as the pills work their way down and set to work breaking down the capsules. Leaning back against the counter, eyes trained on the ceiling, listening to the living room ceiling fan buzz. Feel a kiss on the corner of my mouth and a hand around my waist.

“I am so proud of you.” 

Never before has anyone told me they were proud of me. Not my mother when I showed her my report cards with A’s in every course. Not my father when I cleaned the garage. Not my siblings when I helped them with homework or beat that level of a video game they were stuck on. I was met with nothing but shame and indifference. Thinking about them hurts. As much as they didn’t care for me, I still miss them. The skin of my back and shoulders burn with the memory of charred wood, melting walls and agonized screams. They deserved a better death. 

I wish it were me. 

I cry in your arms. I die in your arms. And then I’m born anew. 

**Author's Note:**

> playlist  
living monstrosity - death  
slowly we rot - obituary  
all my friends are dead - carpathian forest  
deathcrush (original by mayhem) - ophthalamia  
nothing is not - morbid angel  
ineffable king of darkness - dark funeral  
beyond the grace of god - marduk  
where cold winds blow - darkthrone  
cursed in eternity - mayhem  
for all those who died - bathory
> 
> i listened to a lot of classic black metal and death metal while writing this. i hope you enjoy it.


End file.
